GOFIGURATIONS

Velazquez

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 27th Tuesday in Ordinary Time is, “GoFigurations.”

It’s a word I made up for this homily and for a “How to….” method for reflection on many scripture readings or texts.

We can apply this method to many Bible readings - like today’s first reading from Jonah 3: 1-10 on how fast people converted.  Did you notice in today’s first reading that not only people fasted - but animals as well. St. Francis and Pope Francis would love that.

However, in this homily I’m only going to do some “GoFigurations” on the gospel story of Martha and Mary.

GoFigurations.

Spelling:  “g o F i g u r a t i o n s” 

Notice the capital "F” within the word.  If I invented the word, why can’t I put a capital within the word?

Meaning: Figurations one has to go figure out.

PREFIGURATIONS

Last night as I was reading a scripture commentary on today’s gospel story about Martha and Mary, the author - probably Marcel Bastin - [three names are mentioned as authors] (1) - uses the word, “prefigurations”. Martha and Mary are presented as figures - for the church to look at - and to imitate - yes even Martha.

The church has to serve - feed - care for others - like Martha did for Jesus.  Luke presented the figure of the Good Samaritan in yesterday’s gospel as a figure to imitate. Today the church is going deeper and saying, “Yes you have to serve - but don’t forget the guest.”

That’s why husbands and wives who have guests over - learn to switch off and on - to make sure both are present to the guests - and not be inwardly complaining about being stuck with all the work in the kitchen. In fact, neglect some of the finer goodies and foodies - if you’re going to neglect time with the guests.

Both are important - but one is more important than the other.

Martha is important - but Mary - if you go figure out this story as it’s presented here in the gospel of Luke - she has chosen the more important role at the visit of Jesus to their house.

GOFIGURATIONS

So I made up this word, “GoFigurations” - as a way to read and hear the scriptures.

The scriptures are loaded with figures. We know what figures are. Anyone who took an art class knows that when you begin to draw or paint a picture, you first draw figures. The artist or would be artist sketches them there on paper or cardboard - even canvas - and anyone looking at an artist’s preliminary work looks at it and tries to figure out who or what the figure  is  - and what is the artist is going to draw.

Go Figure.  We know just what that slang throwaway phrase means.

Something happens. It’s a puzzle. And we say scratching our head, “Go Figure.”

So we listen to this story Luke tells us about Martha and Mary. We see the figure of Mary just listening to Jesus. We see the figure of Martha coming in and out of the kitchen with a face on. Now go figure out the message. Study the scene.

We’ve been in similar scenes many times in our lives. We’re visiting a family and the host brings out hors d’oeuvers -  like pigs in the blanket. Well, oops, Martha being Jewish would  not have served them - well we all like good bread - delicious wine - and a good conversation.

Did Jesus like an audience? Well,  there was Mary - at Jesus’ feet - mind you?

Who / what was more important: the food we eat or the people we meet while eating?

Luke is some story teller. We can paint the scene in our imagination. We can picture Martha - steaming as she was steaming food in the kitchen. There is her sister doing nothing - nothing - and Jesus ends up praising Mary. Go figure. He is biting the hand that is  feeding him.

Go Figure. Go deeper. Get the message that people are more important than a super perfect 5 star supper.

CONCLUSION

Now go figure. Do a configuration. GoFirgurate. What message do you come up with?

Go Figure. Go Deeper. One message is this: Jesus is the center of the banquet. Jesus is the reason we are here at Mass.

He is the one to notice -  to pay attention to - even if we have poor readers, a poor sermon, poor music, someone coughing, babies crying, ushers in shorts, Eucharistic ministers with cleavage, and ambulances flying and crying down Duke of Gloucester Street.

The guest is Jesus.

Come let us adore him. Christ the Lord.

Come let us meet him! Come let is eat him - eat him up.

NOTES:

(1) God Day By Day, Following the Weekday Lectionary, Volume Three, Ordinary Time: Luke, Commentary on the Texts, Marcel Bastin, Chislain Pinckers, Michel Teheux,  Translate by Robert R. Barr, Paulist Press, New York/ New Jersey,1984

DON’T  LIMIT  THE IMPLICATIONS 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 27 Monday in Ordinary Time is, “Don’t Limit the Implications.”

Today’s gospel is Luke 10: 25-37. It’s the Good Samaritan Story.

We’ve heard the story 100 times - but too many times we limit the implications of the story to just someone who is beaten up or laying there on the sidewalk.

But sometimes the story creeps - slips out - jumps from just that person - to someone in a church or a mall parking lot - who is stuck with a flat tire or their car won’t start and they ask us if we have jumpers and could we give them a jump.

And many times we're like Jonah in today's first reading - Jonah 1:1 to 2:2, 11 - and we head the other way when we feel the call to help someone.

KIDS RETREATS

I’ve given hundreds of high school retreats - and kids' days of retreat - and I am forever grateful for the Good Samaritan story.

Little kids get it when you tell them to break up into small groups and recreate the Good Samaritan story taking place in their lives. You tell them to play act the story - having some kids as the robbers and some kid as the victim - and three kids as the Samaritan, the priest  and the Levite - or use your imagination and have the story in some situation at home or at school or when you're playing.

I love to sit there and see the variations.  I’ve see kids asking other kids for some money for a soda machine - after they lost their wallet or forgot their money. I’ve seen kids sitting in a chair as if it's an imaginary bathroom - only to discover there is no paper - and they call out to their brothers and sisters to simply get some toilet paper. Then two say, “NO!” but the least expected kid says, “I’ll get a roll for you.”

In a High School retreat for our kids, the Good Samaritan was Buckwheat - the guy who goes around Annapolis - always walking on the street and never on the sidewalk - swinging his arms with plastic bags - and they made him the one who stops to help someone who was beaten up and left penniless.

I’ve notice boys love to take the part of the robbers play acting the beating up some other kid.

US

The implications is that the story is for everyday and everyday situations - to step up and step out to help a person who is stuck.

When I had the job of Novice Master in training future Redemptorists,  I often said, “If someone asks you for help - that’s a compliment - because haven’t we all said of someone, “You can’t ask him!”  “You can’t ask her!”?

You only ask those you know will help you.

CONCLUSION: BLESSED FRANCIS SEELOS

The title of my homily is, “Don’t Limit the Implications.”

Today is the feast of Blessed Francis Seelos who died visiting folks with Yellow Fever in New Orleans. What a way to die: helping other human beings?

That’s the way he spent his life - helping folks in Annapolis, Detroit, Pittsburgh, etc. etc. etc.

He certainly got the message on not only how to do life - but how to inherit eternal life as the scholar of the Law in today’s gospel asked Jesus the secret today.

Answer: be the Good Samaritan.

WHEN IN NEW ORLEANS

When in New Orleans, make sure you visit the Shrine of Blessed Francis Seelos. It's at 919 Josephine Street, New Orleans, LA 70130.

When in Fussen, Bavaria, Germany, make sure you go to the Shrine of Blessed Francis Seelos. Here is a picture of that shrine right below this paragraph.

When in Annapolis, Maryland, make sure you to the Blessed Francis Seelos Bench. It appears right below this paragraph. Many people sit with Blessed Seelos, go to confession to him, and then go inside St. Mary's Church - where Blessed Seelos prayed many, many times- when he served here in 1860's.

If you want to choose one of three places mentioned, come to Annapolis - to the Seelos Bench - it's much more welcoming than the same bench in New Orleans. Our's has no limiting bars on the sides of the bench. Our bench can fit more people. 

Your move.

GOING TO CONFESSION 

TO FATHER 

FRANCIS XAVIER SEELOS 

What would it be like to go to confession to a Saint? Would I be nervous, anxious, scared? Would a Saint see right through me – knowing more about me than I know about myself – seeing my embarrassing behaviors and hidden prejudices? But would I also come out of confession whispering, “Phew!” – having received a sacrament – having received a breath of fresh air –  having received the gift and grace that God forgives me? And in time for some sins, can I forgive myself?

What would it be like if there was a holy priest here at St. Mary’s, Annapolis, who had a great reputation as a saint – the “go to” priest for confession? What would people walking or driving down Duke of Gloucester Street think, if they saw a single line of people all the way up from the bridge over Spa Creek heading into church?

Such a priest was stationed here at St. Mary’s way back in the 1860’s. His name was Father Francis Xavier Seelos. In the literature about Father Seelos, writers keep saying lots of people wanted to go to confession to him – here at St. Mary’s, as well as in Pittsburgh, in Baltimore, Cumberland, Detroit, New Orleans, and in the many places where he preached parish missions.

As to long confession lines at St. Mary’s to get to Father Seelos, I was disappointed because I didn’t find any writer saying exactly that - especially  because I did read about  long lines of people wanting to go to confession to him in several other places where he was stationed.

Listen to what the Annals of the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists from 1867 say about Father Seelos when he was stationed in New Orleans, his last assignment. “Here, as in all other places where he had been, he soon became a universal favorite. Germans, English, French, Creoles, negroes, mulattoes, all admired and loved F. Seelos. Though he was by no means a great proficient in English, and still less so in French, there were hundreds of highly educated Creoles and Americans who came miles, and stood for hours before his confessional, in order to have the happiness to make a general confession to him. And we all remarked that whoever went to him once, would never afterwards go to any other director. It was a common belief among the people that he could read the secrets of the heart.” (p. 317, Vol. 5)

It was at St. Philomena’s Parish in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1845-1854), that Seelos’ reputation as a great confessor began. It was his second assignment as a Redemptorist. Perhaps it was because he was stationed with a future Saint – John Neumann – whom he went to confession to – that he knew what it was like to go to confession to a saint.

Francis Xavier Seelos was a creative preacher, but it seems to me, he loved being in the wooden confession box more than the wooden pulpit. But he was not wooden. He was warm and compassionate. Being a Redemptorist, he knew our motto and vision statement, “Copiosa Apud Eum Redemptio.” With Christ there is copious or fullness of redemption.

In Father Carl Hoegerl and Alicia Von Stamwitz’s book, A Life of Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos, they mention a sermon by Father Seelos where he says: “I here publicly give you permission to bring it up to me in the confessional and to call me a liar, if you come to confession and don’t find me receiving you in all mildness.” In other words, you might be filled with fear and trembling, but I promise peace (p. 49) – and if you don’t experience that, yell, “Liar!”

It was great to read that, because being good confessors is supposed to be a key trait of Redemptorists. Our founder, St. Alphonsus de Liguori, not only has the honorary titles of Doctor of Prayer and Patron Saint of Moral Theologians, he also has the title of Patron Saint of Confessors. He wrote a whole book for priests on how to be a good confessor. He wanted Redemptorists to bring Christ’s redeeming love to folks – and one key way was to experience God’s forgiveness in the sacrament of reconciliation – still usually called “confession”.

So when people went to confession to Father Francis Xavier Seelos here at St. Mary’s, they were going to confession to a wonderful and warm saint.

Whenever I sit in a confessional at St. Mary’s, I think about all the Redemptorist priests who heard confessions here in Annapolis for the past 150 years. I say to myself: Blessed Francis Xavier Seelos heard confessions in this very church – well not in these boxes – but in this church. I read in Robert L. Worden’s book which just came out, “St. Mary’s Church in Annapolis, Maryland: A Sesquicentennial History, 1853-2003” (pp. 125-126) that the present confessionals were constructed in 1914. Henry Robert, our sacristan, took me outside the church and pointed out how the outside walls of our church on the prayer garden side or the street side protrude where the present confessionals are.

Sometimes when I see people lined up to go to confession, I reflect about how going to confession has helped me all through my life. I begin by thinking about going to confession as a kid in the Redemptorist Parish of OLPH, Brooklyn.  I’d tell the usual kid stuff – “distobeying”, lying, stealing, fighting with my brother – and at times probably made up some stuff to make it sound good. In time, I didn’t have to make things up – graduating to sins of pride and laziness, etc.

I also remember what happened one Saturday afternoon when I was a kid. It was back in the 1950’s, when Catholics went to confession a lot more than today. Every Saturday eight confession boxes were in operation in our big parish. That afternoon every priest had a line except for one confession box. The light was on – meaning there was a priest in there - but nobody was going to him. I didn’t know why, but I guess I had a kid’s intuition: don’t go near the lion’s den. Then a man came into church – stood in the back for a moment – measured the lines – and perhaps because he was in a rush – headed for the confession box that had no line. Wrong move. Suddenly, everyone in the church smiled as well as being shocked, because they heard quite clearly the priest in the “forbidden box” yelling at the guy who thought he was making a great move.

“Woo! Uh oh! O no!” And I must have said to myself, “If I ever become a priest, I’ll never do that.” It was the same thing I said about a grouch on our block. We’d be playing stickball on the street. There weren’t that many cars back then – hey it was just after World War II and New York City had great public transportation – so our street was not that busy. The black macadam street was our “Field of Dreams”. Sewer covers in the center of the street were home plate and second base; two trees were first and third base. It was great, until a ball went into the grouch’s front yard. That was a “No! No!” The rule was: don’t get caught by the grouch trying to retrieve a Spalding – that wonderful red bouncy ball every kid loved in the 1950’s. And when the grouch grouched, I’m sure everyone said, “When I grow up, I won’t yell at kids who hit a ball into my yard.”

Was Francis Xavier Seelos yelled at – or did he hear the stories every priest hears about someone leaving the Catholic Church because some priest yelled at them? I don’t know, but I do know, he loved hearing confessions.

In fact, when he was semi-conscious, dying of yellow fever in New Orleans at the age of 48, he thought the Redemptorist priests and brothers around his bed were there to go to confession, and he would start with the confession prayers.

Confession is good for the soul. The sacrament or reconciliation is a great gift. It’s a chance to name our sins, to confess them, and hopefully in time to get beyond them.

Fritz Kunkel once described the purpose of confession as: “To bring to light the unknown, the unconscious darkness, and the underdeveloped creativity of our deeper layers.” Certainly people who receive the sacrament of reconciliation down through the years have had this experience. It begins with the call and need for confession – the call to sit and pray in a church for a while, and then to stand on line with other sinners – to articulate one’s sins – the roots of which are deep – and often need a lifetime of weeding from the garden of our soul.

Jesus was off on helping people discover forgiveness and healing. And he tells us to forgive seventy times seven times. He also said, “Let him without sin cast the first stone.”

Hopefully, all of us have had wonderful experiences in the sacrament of confession – experiencing Christ and his forgiveness seventy times seven times – and if any of us have experienced some rock throwing from a priest, that we can forgive him and get beyond that horror.

Everyone knows the priests here at St. Mary’s are not saints. Hopefully everyone who goes to confession here will taste a bit of the joy and “Good News” people who went confession to Father Francis Xavier Seelos experienced. He’s has not been canonized a Saint yet, but he is half-way there, being beatified on April 9, 2000. Hopefully the priests here, keep moving forward one step at a time – as a result of the example the long line of great Redemptorists who have gone before them.

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[I wrote this a few years back and it was put in Moorings - but not in my blog as far as I can tell. Love and prayers, Andy Costello, October 5, 2015] 

October 5, 2015

BLESSED  FRANCIS  SEELOS  PRAYER

Lord, like Francis Seelos, place me

in places today, where I can bring

a good word from Jesus Christ,

some humor, some forgiveness,
mercy, mercy, mercy, some 

support and lots and lots of love.

That should do it. Thank You, Lord.

October 5 - Feast of

Blessed Francis Seelos

Redemptorist priest

and bringer of

God’s Good News

© Andy Costello,

Reflections 2015

October 4, 2015

ONE  PERSON 

There are over 6 billion people on this planet,

yet one person can show the rest of us how

just one person can make a mighty difference.

Pope Francis did just that last week in his visit

to Cuba and the states. In his day St. Francis

of Assisi did just that to his people in his own

style. I can do that every day with my presence.
However there is a catch - as on the beach at
Galilee - we have to be instruments of his peace. Where there is hatred, we have to 
sow love, injury pardon, doubt faith, despair hope, darkness light, sadness joy. Do these,
sow these, and we'll all have a great day. Amen.

© Andy Costello, Reflections 2015

TASTE  DEATH 

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time is, “Taste Death.”

Today’s 3 readings have a lot to talk about - and think about - like marriage, and divorce and children: family. I’d like to reflect on a tiny comment in today’s second reading from the Letter to the Hebrews - which we were taught was probably a homily - and a very long one at that.

The comment was “taste death” - which I made the title of this homily.

Taste death. That’s a November theme more than a today theme - November when the leaves have died - but not without a flair of bright red colors before they fall to the ground and crumble. November is All Souls Day and a time to remember our dead. Not October…. However, I spotted those 2 words that hit me last night as I began working on this homily: “Taste Death.”

Here is the comment in context: “Brothers and sisters: He ‘for a little while’ was made ‘lower than the angels,’ that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.”

The author is saying that God for a little while - became lower than the angels. Then in Christ Jesus God became one of us - human - and God tasted death for everyone and like every one of us.

                                                               Rembrandt

I don’t know about you - but that means a lot to me - that God knows - not only what it is like to be human - but that God knows - what it means - to taste death.

WHO’S ON YOUR LIST

At some point - at various points in our lives - we taste death.

Our own - when we have an operation coming up - as well as those around us.

Whose death have you tasted?  What death cards are tucked into the edge of pictures in your bedroom?  Does anyone have a prayer book - that has grown fat with the years - with death cards from wakes and funerals we attended?

Is anyone here like the man I met in a parish in a small town in Ohio? He said his wife had died 6 years and 234 days ago - and he was still counting.

Evidently, he never forgot his wife. I have never forgot that comment. I’ve often wondered what that love story was about.

When we’re young - death is not in the picture - death is not in the front windshield of our car - or our rear view mirror - even after there is a story about neighborhood teenagers who were killed in a car accident.

These deaths in Oregon will not have their impact on other college kids - like they’ll have on college presidents and some teachers.

I was never a soldier - sailor - marine - or air force person. So I don’t know what it means to see war or training for war or have been in battle or bombing or what have you. Yet  - like everyone - I feel the horror of those who die  while trying to immigrate to a safer place for family stability and a decent life.

So that comment from our Second Reading triggered the question what’s it like to taste death.

FIRST DEATH

Poets talk about first kiss, first mystery, first death.

For me it was Jimmy Hennessey in our grammar school class - probably around the fourth grade.  I remember the silence and the sadness - wearing our school uniforms on a long line to Jimmy’s front parlor to see him in a casket  but it didn’t hit me like it hit his family - especially his parents.

When my nephew Michael died suddenly of cancer when he was 15 - and his parents only had 4 days’ notice - it was then I looked back to what Jimmy Hennessey’s parents must have gone through.

With death there is a lot of looking back - and looking back for a long time.

Then there are all these other thoughts and feelings that hit us.

Regrets - the missed opportunities - sometimes the hurts… buried with the buried person. We’ve all heard in sermons - sometimes with guilt - Paul Tsongas’  comment: “No one on his deathbed ever said, "I wish I had spent more time on my business." New York Times, Jan. 14, 1987

I’ve read that the first death we experience is the key one - after that - the first death enters into how we experience the second death - and on and on and on. I sense that is true at times - and not true at times. It’s an all depends.

I sense that there is a lot of Deja vie when it comes to a viewing in a funeral parlor.

My first real experience was my dad’s death - when I was 29. I discovered the great gratitude I felt that as priest I could do my father’s funeral - and help my mom and our family.

Recently I found out that when my dad was a young man - single - in New York City he had to take a train out to Pittsburgh to get his brother - also single - who had died in a construction accident. He had to take the body in a casket to Portland Maine for a burial where his 2 younger sisters were buried - both of whom were nuns - who died of TB. I wish I had known these stories better so that I could have talked with my dad while he was still alive. I would have said, “What was all that like? What were your feelings?

Maybe that sentence in today’s second reading hit me because I had a tough funeral right here in this church at 9 AM yesterday morning.

As priests we experience death big time. Father Flynn and Father Krastel spend all kinds of time with the sick and the dying at the hospital. How does that affect them - and us. What about those who do hospice and work and life with cancer patients.

I assume the key is not to become cold to death - but personal, real - and like the God text I mentioned in our Second Reading: never to forget what it’s like to taste death.

Families taste death - and friends of the family feel it as well.

It is our call to help each other when death hits home.  I don’t know how many wakes and funerals I’ve met folks who simply said, “We’re neighbors.”

THEN THERE IS THE METAPHOR OF DEATH

Then there are all those deadly experiences called “Life”.

Families taste the metaphor of death - divorce, silence, screaming, hurt.

It’s hard to bury our feelings - especially resentments and bitterness.

Today in Rome the Synod on the family begins. It has been in discussions for two years now and they will spend close to  3 weeks on all kinds of topics - divorce, wonderful families, broken families, remarriage, communion - helping people trying to pick up the pieces and start again.

We are people of faith - believing and hoping in life - after death.

How as church and society can we help people rise from a marriage that died and people have been burnt - for all kinds of reasons - sin, stupidity, selfishness, immaturity - or just simply, “I wasn’t thinking at that time in my life. Or we tried and tried, but it just didn’t work.”

At the opening Mass at that synod on the family in Rome today, I assume they will have today’s readings - and the preacher will talk about divorce and marriage from today’s first and third readings.

I assume nobody will preach on death - but that’s what hit me.

You heard today’s readings. What hit you.

 You witnessed the Pope just coming to our country. What did his visit say to you?  I thought it was a huge moment of grace for us Catholics - and I hope you are encouraging any family members who have dropped out, “Come home. You’ll be welcomed.”

CONCLUSION

I hope all of us these next 3 weeks will have our own family synod and we will do all we can to avoid what kills family life - and put into practice what gives life to our relationships and our families.

Of course we taste death at times. Taste resurrection and new life as well.